Union Now
Union Now is a labor union organizing fund created by leaders of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) unions. 1 The left-of-center American Prospect called it “America’s strike fund” and provides financial support to would-be union organizers, as well as individual workers who claim to have lost their jobs or had their work hours reduced as a result of their union organizing activities. 2 1
Contents
Not to be confused with the labor union-aligned insurance and financial services provider of the same name.
Union Now was founded in 2025 by Association of Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson. 1 3 American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and UFCW Local 3000 president Faye Guenther, whose local represents retail employees in Washington State, northeast Oregon, and northern Idaho, were also involved in Union Now’s creation. 1 4 It is politically aligned with self-described socialist public officials, such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), who endorsed its creation. 1 4
Background
Union Now’s stated goal is “to grow union density [the proportion of the workforce who are union members] back to a minimum of 30% like it was in the 1940s,” arguing that high unionization rates in the 1940s, not other factors such as the destruction of competing international industrial capacity, rapid wartime technological advancement, or population shifts from rural to urban areas, were responsible for what it characterizes as that era’s prosperity compared to the present day. 5
Its supporters contend that a large national strike fund would give workers at businesses such as Starbucks and Amazon the resources needed to resist opposition to union formation by what they characterize as corporate retaliation and delaying tactics. 1 Starbucks United labor union co-founder Jaz Brisack wrote, “If Union Now had existed during our campaign, it could have helped fill the gaps in mutual aid and grassroots fundraising, ensuring that workers could participate in the fight without sacrificing their own livelihoods.” 1
In his Substack newsletter, labor activist and former Gawker and The Guardian journalist Hamilton Nolan characterized donations to Union Now as a “clear, well-defined way for you to make a donation and know that it will go to directly build national union power,” adding, “This is the sort of credible pipeline of money directly into critical union fights that I have long wanted to see.” 6
Finances
Union Now is a 501(c)(3) public charity. It received its Internal Revenue Service (IRS) charitable tax-exempt status in 2025, and as of June 2026, had not yet made its first public annual tax filings. 7